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TWU dispute stirs debate over spirituality in higher education

Author of the article:

Douglas Todd

Publishing date:

February 16, 2013 • 5 minute read

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The antagonism between secular and religious higher education has boiled up as Trinity Western University presses to open the country’s first private Christian law school. The arguments have been remarkably intense.

A key advocate for TWU, Janet Epp-Buckingham, says Christians attending secular law schools are often “marginalized” and taught people of faith are “irrational.”

In the other camp, the head of the Council of Canadian Law Deans, Bill Flanagan, says TWU’s mandatory “community covenant,” which forbids homosexual sex and perhaps limits academic freedom, is “fundamentally at odds with the core values of all Canadian law schools.”

The head of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association, Lindsay Lyster, ramped up the rhetoric by accusing law-school deans of trying to “monopolize” legal education and keep “religiously-minded” people from becoming law students, lawyers and judges.

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In addition, some Christians on talk shows and the Internet are denouncing secular universities as bastions of decadence, nihilism and anti-religious hatred.

Meanwhile, some atheists declare religion the root of all abuse and war. They say there is no compatibility between faith and secular viewpoints.

Both sides are missing crucial points by polarizing this issue, which comes down to: Can religion and spirituality play a beneficial role in higher education?

Let’s start with the history of Western universities.

Atheists like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris are at the forefront of the crusade to eradicate religious perspectives from society, especially universities. They have allies in academics such as Charles Freeman, author of The Closing of the Western Mind: The Rise of Faith and the Fall of Reason.

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However, there is another version of intellectual history.

When the Vancouver archdiocese ran a marketing campaign called “Catholics Come Home,” one ad boasted the church was instrumental in developing higher education and the scientific method. Some viewers protested. But the church ad was correct.

More than any other institution, the Catholic Church gave strong financial and social support to universities and the sciences from the late Middle Ages to the Enlightenment, writes Michael Shank, of the University of Wisconsin, in Madison.

“Put succinctly, the medieval period gave birth to the university, which developed with the active support of the papacy,” Shank writes in the book, Galileo Goes to Jail and Other Myths About Science and Religion.

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“By 1500, about 60 universities were scattered throughout Europe, many focused on the natural sciences … If the medieval church had intended to discourage or suppress science, it made a colossal mistake in tolerating – to say nothing of supporting – the university.”

But what about the Catholic Church’s infamous punishment of the astronomer Galileo in the 1500s? It is true at times and places the Vatican did clamp down on free scientific inquiry, Shank says. But that should not cloud the fact the church generally promoted higher education.

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And many in English-speaking Europe and North America also fail to recognize most top universities, such as Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Oxford, Cambridge, Toronto, McGill and McMaster, had solid Christian origins.

However, attitudes to religion in academia were changing by the late 1800s; universities began giving religion much less of a role in curricula.

That downward trend accelerated in the late 20th century. Now many academics in the sciences, especially the social sciences, treat religion as anathema. They might allow teaching “about” religion, but they adamantly oppose spiritual perspective in courses.

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As a result, many shove religious universities such as TWU to the margins, particularly in Canada.

This is not to suggest all Christians have been clear-headed about the origins of higher education. It’s false to claim that “Christianity gave birth to modern science,” writes Bar-Ilan University Professor Noah Efron in Galileo Goes to Jail.

Even though Christians were “crucial” in establishing universities and the sciences, Efron says so were Muslims, Greeks, Indians, Jews, Chinese, Taoists, Persians and, by the 20th century, agnostics and atheists.

In addition to clarifying such historical realities, philosophical distinctions need to be made in the controversy over TWU’s efforts to open a Christian law school.

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There is a difference between rejecting the concept of a religious university altogether and merely criticizing a school for restrictive treatment of gays and lesbians. The latter is all that the head of the Council of Canadian Law Deans says he was doing.

Indeed, it should be highlighted many Christian colleges and universities are not bastions of fundamentalism. In the U.S., Catholic universities such as Notre Dame, Georgetown and Fordham, are especially held in high regard.

Many Christian schools are also engaged in lively struggles over homosexual relationships. Students at evangelical U.S. colleges such as Baylor, Belmont and Abilene are protesting bans on gay-friendly student clubs.

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In addition, many Christians have been leaders in supporting gay rights, including at prestigious divinity schools at Harvard, Yale, Chicago, Claremont, Columbia and Princeton.

Just as importantly, some enlightened people at secular institutions of higher learning are discerning the distinction between dogmatic religious declarations and open-minded spiritual inquiry.

The Decline of the Western University explores what secular academia is missing by turning its back on spiritual questions.

They’re becoming aware of the critiques offered in books such as The Decline of the Secular University (Oxford University Press), by John Somerville.

Along with deans at Harvard and Yale, Somerville argues secular universities, by increasingly emphasizing career preparation, are undermining what used to be the purpose of higher education – to foster engaged citizens capable of dealing with complex moral issues. It’s why so many faculty refuse to talk about “wisdom.”

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Somerville, however, hopes people in higher education may finally be entering a “post-secular” era. He cites how the dean of American philosophy, Stanley Fish, offered a groundbreaking reply when asked: What’s the next big thing in higher education?

Fish’s answer: “Religion.”

Increasingly uncomfortable with having pushed ultimate questions out of universities, academics like Fish are realizing they can learn a few things from religion-based schools. That is, they need to respond to students’ search for spiritual and moral meaning.

Some brave souls in secular Canadian academia are getting the message. They include scholars at the University of Victoria’s dynamic Centre for Studies in Religion and Society, as well as those reviving religious studies programs at Simon Fraser University and the University of British Columbia.

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UBC’s Edward Slingerland, coordinator of a $3-million research grant into the evolution of religion and morality, is one who recognizes even atheists, whether they know it or not, are committed to a metaphysics, by which he means “entities or principles that are generally unverifiable.”

In that way Slingerland exemplifies the spirit of an increasing number of “secular” scholars; specifically those who take seriously the teaching of the great Greek philosopher, Aristotle, who once said:

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